Today I’m joining the blog tour The Delegate. I’m sharing an extract from the book with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to the publisher for providing the extract.

Blurb:

Ex Cumbrian G.P. Charlotte Peterson is a vicious serial killer simmering her way through a life sentence in Rampton High Security Hospital. A sycophantic inmate with Mafia family connections had aided her escape to a murderous New York rampage six months earlier, but Charlotte only managed to actually kill one of the remaining enemies on her list. She therefore needs someone on the outside to complete the job – A Delegate.

Recaptured by D.C.I. Harry Longbridge and D.I. Fran Taylor after flying to the U.S., Charlotte pulls the strings of a vulnerable woman with serious historic mental health challenges of her own. The icing on the cake for Charlotte is that the woman concerned is none other than Harry’s wife, Annie. It feels good – very good.

However, despite initially falling into line believing it will help with her own ‘List,’ Annie develops a growing inner confidence and two powerful women begin mentally circling one another. As Annie covertly pushes forwards with her own plans, the Zandini’s increasingly come to the fore in more ways than one – and Charlotte starts to feel distinctly uneasy….

Extract:

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PROLOGUE

RAMPTON HIGH SECURITY HOSPITAL

JUNE 2020

Charlotte was a little perplexed she had a visitor at all. She never had visitors. Not surprising really, it’s something she’d come to get used to . . . again. But not today. Today the request sent out many times before had finally been accepted, and she’d agreed to see her. Two months of secret correspondence had paid off. Well, secret as far as one person was concerned, anyway.  

When the door to the lounge area opened and the woman walked into the room, for the first time in a good number of years, it was Charlotte Peterson who looked surprised – or maybe not…. They weren’t so different, she and her.  

The orderly indicated a chair for the woman to sit down, there were other people in the lounge and she acknowledged a thank you with a slight nervous snatch of her head. She looked about her and took a seat opposite the patient she’d come to see. The two women initially observed each other silently, an oblong table set between them. For a few moments the orderly stood to one side, and then left them to observe from a desk further away.  

“H – Hello, Charlotte,” said the visitor, picking at her nails, eyes now darting between their misshapen edges and Charlotte’s waiting stare. “I’ve been. . . I’ve. . . it’s. . .”  

The former doctor eased forward slowly, leant elbows on knees and made a bridge with her hands against her mouth. She then looked closely into the very soul of her; closely enough to see it was severely emotionally scarred, and thus vulnerable. Vulnerable, ripe and ready. The corner of her lips tugged into that famous half smile – her eyes remained cold. Charlotte breathed a whispered, slow reply into her hands so as not to alert anyone nearby.  

“Hello, Annie. . . what took you so long?” And as Annie Longbridge smiled nervously, biting her lip, beginning to wish she’d never come, never written that letter, never got involved in any way whatsoever…. Charlotte Peterson knew she’d found her. She had found ‘the one’. Exactly the right one for her very, very important work – she had found The Delegate….

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The Delegate is available from Amazon.

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